Requiem
by Wolvertique
Summary: A further description of my Dark and Shameful Past AU from the perspectives of the surviving mutants.
1. A Rescue

**Story Note: Set in my "Dark and Shameful Past" AU, this occurs a few years before DSP, and gives perspectives from the surviving and prominent mutants in this world.**

Good. The new mutant was right across the river, and was alone and alive.   
  
He adjusted his jacket. This was the tricky part. He tapped the button and held his breath. His image flickered, then mostly vanished, other than a few streaks of red hanging in the air.   
  
He cursed, then closed his eyes and centered himself. Calm. He could not help anyone if he did not act rationally and objectively.   
  
He smoothly cut into the river. The guards were laughing softly about something and did not notice him. Good.   
  
He got onto the docks and hid behind a barrel. This was not the way he preferred to do things, but since the Mutant Murders, he had done a lot of things he disliked. He turned off his invisibility device, then started walking briskly toward town.   
  
The new mutant was in an alley not three blocks away. He heard moans as he approached. He nodded. It was a good thing he had told the healer back at the camp that he might be needed.   
  
She was a teenaged girl, bruised and battered, and she cringed away from him as he came closer. Her legs were bent at odd angles, and her eyes were glazed.   
  
_Control yourself, Erik._ At least this one was still alive.   
  
"Don't worry. I am here to help you, child." She looked at him, eyes full of pain, and he forced a smile. "First, we have to get you out of here."   
  
He managed to smuggle the girl across the river with no problems. For once, everything happened as planned. He thanked the God he'd lost faith in years before.   
  
He gave the girl to the healer, then went back to his home. Mystique was there, cleaning and loading the guns. She smiled as he entered. "Erik! How did it go?"   
  
He sighed. "Better than some, worse than others." He kissed her gently, then sat down hard. "I wish, sometimes, my plans to rule the world had worked out. Then mutant children would never be beaten and abused."   
  
She nodded. "Bad enough, then." She put the rifle down and rubbed his shoulders soothingly. "I should go see her?"   
  
He sighed. "Probably. She'll survive, and she'll need to know where she is and what's going on. I don't think she'd listen to me."   
  
His wife stroked his cheek. "I think she will eventually. I did."   
  
He smiled, then put his head down on the table as she left. Magneto, Master of Magnetism, never cried ... but Erik Lensherr, co-leader of the mutant resistance in Mexico, found it hard to hold back sometimes. 


	2. In the Camp

I took a small handgun from the rack and made sure it was loaded, then headed out to check the new recruits. Ten had been smuggled across the border yesterday, and three had gotten through today, including the new girl Erik told me about.

I chose a couple of strong guards as backup and told them to meet me at the healer's tent. New recruits usually had a few scars to show after they arrived, especially now that most United States police have been told to shoot first and ask questions later. Then I checked on the scouts, the security details, and the supplies, getting an extra clip for my gun.

Unfortunately, these days, you cannot be too careful.

Hookup found me as I was checking the clip. "Newbies again, eh?" His dark eyes glistened. "Doing them yourself this time."

"Yes." The clip was fine, and I slipped it into my pocket. "And do not tell me I am taking too much on myself, again. I have the time, and …"

"… you still got that guilt complex over the murder of Senator Kelly." Hookup smirked at me. "Fearless leader, gotta let go sometime. We're here to help. Let us."

"I am. You are going to help me question them."

He shook his head. "Why I bother. Most stubborn person here, other than Magneto."

He kept grumbling at me as I walked to the healers' tent and went inside, gun holstered for now. There were two children with severe burns, one suffering intense shock, and one I did not recognize. The guards followed Hookup and me inside.

Jimmy-Doc was at the side of one of the burn victims, a boy named Mike. I nodded to him and looked at the child. He was thin and weak, the burns wrapping around his arms like snakes, and his green eyes were too large for his small freckled face.

Jimmy came over to me with a last reassuring pat on the child's hand. "They're getting younger and younger," he murmured to me.

"I know." The mutants from yesterday were all ten or eleven, with their "leader" a very lucky thirteen year old boy. "In any case. How are they doing, and are they up for questioning?"

He smiled. "Mike is. Ciara will be, after her nap." He pointed to the other burn victim, whose face was wrapped in the last of our bandages. "Uvaldo needs a little more time. He's still convinced that the terrors he created were real. I think the new girl will talk to you, not me."

I nodded. "I shall begin immediately."

I talked to her and the other children. They were all stories I had heard before. Mutant gains new powers, gets abused for them. Mutant tries a run for Mexico and finds it's not as easy as it seems. Mutant finally gets here, but not without scars.

I waited to release my tears until I had gotten outside, away from the children, away from the others. A leader must be strong. She must never show weakness. I had heard these stories all too often these past two years. Why, then, did they continue to bother me?

I walked to my tent. Erik had gone, but he left me a letter on the table. From him?

Oh. It was a letter from Canada. Then, perhaps, my attempts to contact them had worked.

I slit the letter open and began reading.

"Mystique,

"My sister thinks I am crazy to write to you at all. She says you are and always have been a terrorist, and even if you gave her life, you did nothing to help her keep it, so she asks that you leave her alone.

"I am not my sister, but I too am worried about your intentions. I have seen the things you did, the way you sparked the changes in our country, and I do not entirely trust you. On the other hand, I have always believed in redemption and salvation. So your letter spoke to my heart.

"My head, however, will need some convincing.

"Why did you give us away, mother? Did you love us at all, or at least love our father? Why do you now work so hard to convince us, when for years you ignored us?

"Are you really working for mutants? I understand you now live with Magneto. Is he just another means to an end for you, or is he using you this time?

"In any case, Logan and James tell me that your organization does do good things for mutants, and that you have worked with Alpha Flight on a few dicey operations. Logan even went so far as to say that you "ain't half bad, for a human hating terrorist." I suppose that is another reason why I answer your letter.

"We are well. I hope you have truly reformed, Mystique. Perhaps, once this is all over, we can meet again and talk.

"Please answer.

"Sincerely,

"Kurt Wagner."

I put the letter down and wept again. I saw my son as one of the children I had spoken with today, scarred and fragile.

Perhaps Hookup is right. I do take too much on myself.


	3. Frozen in Time

I walked out of the elevator and nearly fainted. Someone was smoking the nastiest cigar I'd ever smelled. Damn it.

"Logan!" I called. A surly voice answered me from down the hall.

I had to laugh when I looked into the office. Logan was sitting there behind a desk, signing papers and looking official. He was even wearing a tie.

"What's so funny, Hudson?" He looked up from the Additional Housing Request form he was filling out through a haze of smoke.

"You still are." I sobered up fast. "Could you put that thing out?"

He shrugged and smashed it into a pile of papers waiting for his signature. "Sure."

"Don't …" I said at the same time, but gave up. "Fine."

"How was it today?" He stretched backward and yawned. "Wish it was me, rather than you."

"Don't get me started." I found a chair and sank into it. My feet were killing me. "One of the mutants will survive. Some of the others might, too, if we have the space in a local hospital. A lot of them died."

He nodded. "Did you get them?"

"Yes." I closed my eyes. The mutant hunters had been killed, almost to the last of them, with only a few surviving for interrogation later. If it had been up to me, every last one of them would have died. Lucky we had a few who kept their cool on the team.

"Any familiar faces?" The tone was casual, but I'd known Logan for too long to miss the pain layered underneath.

"No, thank goodness. Not among the hunters or their victims." I'd seen Logan before in moods from killing rage to happiness, but only once in utter despair. That was after we found several mutants that two of his friends had been keeping safe, before the hunters got all of them. Kitty and Ororo died that day. We were only hours behind, but that was enough. He stayed out of everything for about a week, then returned as if nothing was wrong.

I pretended with him, of course. It was the least I could do.

He relaxed a fraction. "Good. They got places?"

"Not if you don't fill out those housing requests." I rubbed my eyes. They ached deeply.

"Gotta love workin' for the government." He growled a little and threw a paper to the floor. "Though I also gotta admit, Jimmy, if I knew then what I know now, I woulda let you take me away from the X-men and back here."

I chuckled a little. "If I'd known, I'd have dragged you here even if you killed me for it." 

He snorted. "I probably would have."

I decided to change subjects. "How's the day care going?"

Oddly enough, despite the danger, many mutants we found coming from the States were pregnant or had small children. I couldn't handle supervising that aspect of things, now that Heather was gone, so Logan was the Division Manager for Mutant Families.

He shrugged and spread his arms wide. "Okay. Don't see why so many people think they should bring kids into a world like this, though."

I coughed, hard. "I heard Krystal's been having a hard time over that letter Mystique sent her."

He looked at me suspiciously. "She and Kurt. Why?"

I opened my eyes wide. "No reason at all. Really." 

Everyone who spent any time around the Mutant Cultural Center knew that Kurt and Krystal Wagner, the Amazing Nightcrawlers, had an unofficial companion much of the time named Wolverine. They also knew that he especially liked spending time with Krystal. And I knew that despite his loner existence, he desired children of his own. Why else was he constantly "adopting" mutant kids?

He passed it off with a wave. "Smartass. Think you know everything."

"How are they handling it?" Surprised me to no end when the team of Mystique and Magneto formed a mutant resistance army/camp in Mexico, but I'd learned to accept it. I couldn't imagine how it felt to the twins now that they knew Mystique was their mother.

"How'd you expect? Krystal won't write to her, though I know she read her letter. Kurt's curious but wary. As for me, I'm willing to give M&M some slack these days. For power-mad anti-human terrorists, they ain't half bad." He picked up his cigar butt and threw it into an overflowing ashtray.

I reluctantly got up from my chair. "I know what you mean. Come on, Logan. Let's knock off for today."

"Whatever you say, boss." He threw on his coat and shoved his chair under the desk. "You know I'm willing to do more field work. I'm good at it."

"I know." He had taken over doing the desk work for me after Heather died, and I had been slowly getting back to my normal duties, but I still needed some time to grieve. "Let's talk about it over a beer at Pete and Mike's place."

He sighed. "Just a second." He looked at the pictures he had of the dead, including Professor Xavier and Jean Grey, and the missing, like Scott Summers and Hank McCoy. "I'm still on the job. I haven't forgotten any of you."

He turned and headed to the door, brushing past me quickly. "Let's go."


	4. Reflecting

He opened the letter slowly. It was dated three months ago, and had gone from Mexico to France first, then to Canada. It was addressed to him and his twin sister.

"My dear Kurt.

"I am sorry that Krystal wants nothing more to do with me, but I can understand her reluctance. I hope you can convey my apologies for disturbing her. I had wished she would be more forgiving than I would have been under the same circumstances. I suppose that was incredibly foolish."

He nodded. Krystal was still adamant. She did not want to hear from Mystique at all.

"Your father was a good man, but I was not good to him or for him, I fear. I did not trust him with my true identity, and I paid the price for it. So did you. I am sorry for that, believe me. I doubt he would have rejected us if I had told him from the start who I was and what I wanted. Thinking back, I could have loved him, but I did not until it was too late, and he had gone."

What kind of a man was his father? This merely intrigued him. How had his father rejected him and his twin? They were just babies. How could a man reject his own children?

"You were wonderful babies. I still remember holding you, amazed that each of you were real people already. I wanted to raise you, but I could not. An organization from my past came back to hunt me down. I would not risk your lives by being selfish and making you stay with me. I swear to you I meant to come back when I could, but I was swept away too fast when they came hunting me, and then I got caught up in other things. Now that I have seen you, I suppose I should thank the old witch for doing so well. You both seem healthy, happy, and reasonably intelligent."

He could not imagine Mystique holding a baby, much less himself or his sister. What was she like, then? What organization came after her? Why had Margali never told him anything of this?

"I am busy. Erik is a comfort to me, as I am to him. We both are about the same age, and have had those we love betray us before. His former wife was a demon, you know, who tricked him into impregnating her, and then abandoned him."

He winced. He had no great love for Magneto, but even he did not deserve such treatment. Perhaps that was why he had become the tyrant he was when Kurt knew him.

"I realized I do love him just last year, after our marriage. I did not think about it before. He was, simply, Erik, and he was important to me. Yes. I love Erik."

Mystique saying she loved someone? Another first.

"I suppose I love you both too."

Second. How should he feel about that? It made him uneasy.

"We are trying to care for too many mutants with too few resources. I imagine you are far better off than are we. We have been cutting down on our rations so that the children may have enough to eat, and more children come in every day. Sometimes our friends in the government can take a few from us, but more often than not, we have to care for them ourselves."

He would have to let Logan or James know about that. Maybe Alpha Flight could help get some resources down to Mexico the next time Canada sent a diplomat that way.

"Now, I must close my letter, as we have many more tasks to accomplish. Erik wished me to convey his greetings and apologies for any harm he caused you in the past. He says you were a good friend to his friend, Charles, and that he wishes you well."

Hmph. He'd believe it when he heard it from Magneto himself, and not before.

"Stay well. Stay safe. Do not try to come here.

"Your mother, Mystique"

He stared at the pages for some time, then turned at his sister's voice. "You are going to tell me anyway, Kurt, ja? Tell me now."

He smiled. Krystal had just showered, and water twinkled in her short blue fur. "She is sorry for having bothered you, meine schwester."

"That is all?" Her golden eyes narrowed. "She did not say anything else?"

He shrugged. "They are poor, and have many mutants to feed. She says she loves him, and us."

She leaped over to the desk and looked at the envelope. "Air France. C.O.D." She quirked a brow at him. "You paid for this?"

"I asked for it." He leaned back in his chair. "So, you are interested in her."

She took a deep breath. "Ja, I must admit. But I do not want to talk to her." She took the letter and read it slowly, then put it down on the desk and tapped the paper. "How much of this do you believe?"

"I do not know what to feel, what to think." He swished his tail through the air once. "I do know some of it is probably true."

She got up and gave him a brief hug. "Logan's asked us out again. Want to go?"

"Nein. I need to think about this, all of it." He smiled at her. "You go. You could use some fun, nicht konnten Sie?"

"Maybe." She left, and he stretched out on his bed. He did not want to write back just now. He let his mind wander as time passed in the world outside.


	5. Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Note: This is going to be a very disturbing story. I don't intend to be graphic - I don't think I usually am on here, but if well-done, it should make you shiver. Don't read it unless you're cool with that.

I opened my eyes and smiled. Such a beautiful day it was at Camp American Freedom. I stretched, enjoying the feel of silk against my skin almost as much as I enjoyed leather.

Mm. I'd gotten up early enough to get hot water for my shower. I purred, letting the warmth flow over my skin. It was delicious. Soon, too, I'd be able to get to work. I was so lucky to have work I enjoyed.

I got into my guard uniform and chuckled. The rest of the mutant guards had to wear power inhibitor collars, unless their powers were weak. I did not have to. I made sure to strap my nightstick, illegally reinforced with lead, to my belt. I checked my sheath. My knife was there and sharp.

I got to do punishments today. I sighed in delight. The last time I'd gotten to do punishment, I'd collected a soul and still had prisoners flinching away from me. It was wonderful.

I ran down to the guard ready room and was there in five seconds. Ah, my sweet, sweet sister was there, looking up at the roster with relief on her face. The pathetic fool that she is. I wonder, sometimes, why I don't just send her to our mother's realm.

She shook as she saw me. Good. I smiled gently at her. "Wanda."

She bit her lip. "Pietro!" She pretended joy at the sight of me. I laughed. She wore a collar like the rest of the mutant swine guarding the camp.

"Why don't you come with me today, dear sister? Perhaps we can show the warden your true nature." I reached out to touch her face and stopped when she started flinching away.

"N...no, that's okay, Pietro." Her loss. My dear, loving sister always tried to forget our mother's heritage. I twisted the air above her skin instead and she whimpered in pain.

Ah. That's a sound I always enjoy.

"Please," she whined. "Pietro, please."

I didn't need more pain from her. I released my hold on her soul, and she shivered. "Remember who our mother is. She reigns below, Wanda. You could reign here, as I do. Stop letting our weak father's blood corrupt you."

I left then, heading to the punishment block, humming cheerily. I never let the fact that Magneto was my sire hold me back from my true demonic heritage. I was glad.

The survivors of the group I'd betrayed were here today. Wonderful. Two women and a man. Just perfect.

I waited in the doorway. They were hog-tied and cuffed, so it took them a few moments to notice me. Then the man turned his head and his eyes widened. "Quicksilver? What happened to you?"

I smiled proudly. "Nothing, Summers. But something's going to happen to you." I stroked my knife slowly.

"Betrayal." Ah, the bitterness in his throat warmed my body. All the negative emotions, really, were all I needed.

"Of course. When you knew me before, I only aided the X-men so you would get me away from that milksop moralist of a father of mine." I pulled the blade out and started playing with it.

He gave a sharp, quick intake of breath. I stopped playing and got to work.

In a few hours, I was done. They were strapped to the racks in the punishment cell, covered in new wounds, some of which would scar. I had managed to restrain myself a little, going over their screams in my head. I couldn't have the delights of their pain if they were dead, after all, though I think maybe Scott was trying to get me to kill him at the end.

Perhaps next time I'll let myself go a little. Even the punishment I would receive for such a deed would be far outweighed by the joy of taking his soul and draining his life.

I twirled my nightstick like Charlie Chaplin and strolled out of the cell. There was still more to do in the concentration camp for mutants, and I was going to do it all.


End file.
